Schooling by Heather McGowan Read Free Book Online

. . the guide points . . . As if the figures know they are creations. What a tense scene. Follow the gaze from child to man. And these two figures over here who point to something unseen. Our gaze lingers because we are directed to ponder mysteries.
    A man in the tour ponders the mysteries of time.
    Any questions?
    Yes there are questions, not just Sophie’s when she brought Catrine out to the fields of sleeping cows one day after English. After Betts teaching Metaphor. Do you want to sit on the cows? Sophie said. They don’t mind. Certainly there are questions. The cows turned once, slowly.
    Moving on, my sheep . . . the docent leads his group to Fruit with Fishhead.
    Sophie would just stare. You will just stare won’t you? A question. Sophie drummed her leather shoes against the cow’s massive side. Tattooed the poor cow with its own family. Said Hereford sighed.
    An ocean. Turner. Tell me Catrine, Sophie said, Catrine Catrine. Finally she answered, It’s like. But then stopped, stumped for analogy. The cow’s ears cut her view into three pieces. Indescribable. That’s no answer, Sophie shook her head slowly saying in rhythm to her heels against the cowside. No answer at all. Which was true enough.
    Here’s a painting children love.
    A farm, haystacks. In the week before Christmas, Father took her roaming. Scouring the countryside for a house halfway between Chittock Leigh and London. The scenes were identical, eager owner restraining a retriever, issuing practiced belches of delight at the pargeting or stained glass, relating the exciting history of Catholics hidden in the larder. O ye ancient trellis, thy comely mantel. In London they were still eating off a table mapped with the Bosporus, the Nile or whichever geography Father wanted over supper that night, his chicken, her vegetables, their rivers. The brick wall her bedroom gave aspect on was undoubtedly the Great Wall of China or a metaphor. Father had never gone to university so all cracks are rivers to be learned and every cumulus holds a continent.
    One night, a pub. Two eaved rooms, a toilet down the hall. They left their bags, the night was thick with fog or was it rain, symbolic weather of some kind. Went downstairs for stew. The bartender’s wife set down two plates, then went back to leaning against the bar, watching as they picked around gristle, carefully extracting half-done potatoes. Father saying Be Discreet for Heaven’s Sake with his napkin at his lips. When the woman came for their plates, he asked about the town, the environs, the house down the hill. Behind him, two darts players laughed at Father’s accent. Or were they laughing from the game, yes, one had nearly pierced his mate’s nose with an errant dart.
    She went up for her shandy, his Guinness, gauging the brims not to spill on the way back through the crowd. Knowing Father watched. She was no omniscient, but she knew what he was thinking. She sat down, wiped her hands. Picked up a beermat to examine the image of a milkmaid. The town clock tolled eight, nine. They were strangers. Father drew an X in the foam to see if his beer was well drawn. You used to like to do that, he said, draw an X for me. She waited. She watched a man in a rugby shirt try to fix his glasses.
    You seem all grown up to me . . . Father looked where she did, at the man . . . In only ten weeks.
    I’m the same.
    You’ve gotten so quiet.
    I’m the same.
    Rabbiting away, a great flood of details. In the old days. Couldn’t stop you. What are you saving up for?
    Nothing, Father please.
    We’ll tell our Monstead stories. How about when Treat bolted for Corby looking for adventure. Or, day before Annual Dinner when your Mr. Stokes stole a Christmas pudding from the kitchens. Then there was Peterson who swung through a hatch on a rope that couldn’t support his weight. Ended up, all the boys thought me an idiot.
    When it was her turn she made up a story about Brickie’s mother putting her head in the oven which